Top 12 Tricky Science Questions Answered

Science is all about asking questions, and some of the most interesting and thought-provoking questions come from the imaginations of children. They can be staring out of a window and then drop such bombshells as:

"How much does the sky weigh?"

The media often laments how few parents are equipped to answer these questions. Fortunately, we live in the age of information, with answers just a few clicks away. The important thing is to never dismiss or dodge these questions. This inquisitive nature passes by all too quickly. If you are unsure of an answer, seek it out with your child! Children crave parental attention, and this is a great opportunity for you to spend time together while learning something new.

Here are some of the science questions I am asked quite often, particularly by my younger students. Each question and their related questions have simple answers and, where necessary, a link for more information. Enjoy!

12 Tricky Science Questions

Why is the sky blue?

Why does the moon appear in the daytime?

How much does the sky weigh?

How much does the Earth weigh?

How do airplanes stay in the air?

Why is water wet?

What makes a rainbow?

Why don't birds get electrocuted when they land on an electric wire?

Do aliens exist?

Where do birds go in the winter?

Why is the ocean blue?

Why is the sun the only star that can be seen during the daytime?

Blue sky over a green hillside. | Source

1. Why Is the Sky Blue?

The sky looks blue but really it is made up of all the colours of the rainbow. Each of these colours has a different wavelength. Some of these are smoother while others are choppy. Blue light waves travel in short, choppy waves. Like each of the other colours, blue light waves are scattered and reflected as they enter Earth's atmosphere and collide with gases and other particles. Because the colour blue has the shortest wavelength, it collides with nearly everything in its path and is scattered about the sky. This is why the sky appears blue.

Nitrogen, which makes up 78 percent of Earth's atmosphere, is the gas that blue light mostly collides and reflects off of as it makes its way toward Earth. If not for nitrogen and the short wavelength of the colour blue, the sky might be a different colour.

Is the Sky Blue Because of the Ocean?

No, the sky is blue because blue light waves have a short wavelength, causing this colour to get caught in the sky as it collides with gases and other particles.

What Is the True Colour of the Sky?

The sky has no true colour. While most of the time it is blue, sometimes it is not. It can often be pale blue, gray, or even white. The reason for this is pollution. Below is a table listing the different colours the sky the cause of its changed colour.

Colour of the Sky

Causes

Deep blue sky

This colour means the sky is very clean. This often occurs when a cold front brings clean air from the north, or when clean air from the ocean moves onto land.

Medium blue sky

This colour means there is lots of water vapor in the sky. It can also suggest the presence of sulfur from coal-burning operations. Lastly, it may be caused by the chemical emissions of plants and trees, such as those found in The Smokey Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

Pale or milky-white sky

This colour indicates considerable air pollution from coal-burning power plants or chemical power plants. This condition often occurs in the summer when the air is still. There are also natural causes, such as volcanic activity or ocean plankton.

Gray or dark gray

Smoke from forest fires or agricultural burns can cause the sky to appear this colour.

Brown or brownish orange

Emissions from cars and trucks can cause a layer of this colour to form over the horizon. The main component of this kind of pollution is nitrogen dioxide.

The colours of the daytime sky and the causes of its varying colour.

Is the Sky Purple?

Simply by looking up, we can see that the sky is indeed blue and not purple. This is a frequently asked question, though, because according to the general answer to the question of the sky's colour (that because blue has a short wavelength it is caught and reflected in the sky), violet should be seen too, since its wavelength is even shorter than blue's.

It is true that violet is being scattered in the sky much like blue, but our eyes are not refined enough to see every colour of the spectrum. The sky is dominated by wavelengths between 400 nanometers (violet) and 450 nanometers (blue). When mixed together, our eyes are only able to see the dominant colour: blue.

Why Is the Sunset Red or Orange?

According to the science magazine Scientific American, the sunset is reddish because "when the sun is setting, the light that reaches you has had to go through lots more atmosphere than when the sun is overhead, hence the only colour light that is not scattered away is the long wavelength light, the red.

2. Why Does the Moon Appear in the Daytime?

The moon does not produce its own light. We can only see the moon when light coming from the sun is reflected off of its surface. This means that whenever the moon reflects the sun's rays we can see it–even in the day time.

The visibility of the moon during the daytime also depends on its angle and its distance from Earth. When the moon and sun are on the same side of Earth, the moon is visible during the day; when the moon and sun are on opposite sides of the Earth, the moon is not visible during the day, as the Earth is blocking sunlight from reaching the moon's surface.

The reason we can see the moon and not stars during the day is because the sunlight reflected off of the the moon makes it 100,000 times brighter than the brightest star in the sky.

Can You See a Full Moon During the Day?

A full moon only happens when the sun shines on the face of the moon unobstructed by the Earth. Thus, you cannot see a full moon during the day. If there is daylight, at least part of the sun's light is shining upon the Earth, which would mean the entirety of the moon's face would not be illuminated.

What Is it Called When the Moon Is Out During the Day?

Currently, there is no scientific name for when the moon is out during the day. But, hey! There's nothing stopping you from creating your own.

How Long Is a Day on the Moon?

A day on the moon is equal to 29.5 Earth days. This means from sunrise to sunset on the moon, 29.5 Earth days would pass.

The top of Earth's atmosphere. | Source

3. How Much Does the Sky Weigh?

The Earth has a surface area of 197 million square miles. Multiply that by four billion, and you have the Earth's surface area in square inches. With atmospheric pressure being an average 14.7 lbs (6.6kg) per square inch, the sky weighs roughly 5.2 million billion metric tons. Another way of looking at it, according to the United Kingdom's Science and Technology Facilities Council, is in its equivalent to Indian elephants. By that measure, the sky weighs equal 570,000,000,000,000 adult Indian elephants.

With all that weight, it's surprising we don't notice it as it presses on us evenly from all directions. That's because we've become used to it, and our bodies, having lived under the weight of the sky since infancy, have developed the necessary muscles to carry that weight. If we were to have grown up on another planet with less air, the weight of the air surrounding Earth might fatigue us. Luckily, that is not the case.

The blue marble. | Source

4. How Much Does the Earth Weigh?

The Earth weighs 5.972 x 10^24 kg, or around 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg. However, the Earth technically weighs nothing, because weight depends on the gravitational pull acting on an object and the Earth is floating in space. Still, mathematicians got the number above by looking at the strength of Earth's gravitational pull on nearby objects.

How Much Do All the People on Earth Weigh?

If the entire human population stepped on a scale, the weight would be 316 million tons (or 632 billion pounds), according to a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Those who are overweight in the world carry a total of 16 million tons of extra weight, the equivalent of 242 million normal-weight people.

Airplanes abide by Newton's third law of physics to stay in the air. | Source

5. How Do Airplanes Stay in the Air?

Planes stay in the air because of the shape of their wings. Air moving over the wing gets forced downwards, which pushes the wing up. This push is stronger than gravity, and so makes the plane fly.

This is a very technical subject that the video below deals with very nicely. Planes take advantage of Newton's third law of physics, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As air moving over the wing gets forced down, there is an equal and opposing force generated. This is a combination of the bottom of the wing getting pushed up, and the top of the wing getting pulled up.

Can an Airplane Stand Still in the Air?

An airplane cannot stand still in the air. This is a rule outlined by the laws of physics. Everything is always falling, but an aircraft can appear to stand still in the air by stabilizing its altitude. A helicopter, for example, appears to stand still in the air as its propeller pulls the aircraft up at the same rate gravity pulls it down. An airplane, too, can appear to stand still if there is a strong headwind coming towards it that keeps it in place.

Can an Airplane Go in Reverse?

Airplanes can in fact go in reverse. They a "thrust reverser" which changes the direction of the spinning blades in the thruster so that air is thrust forward instead of back. Airplane pilots usually only use this function for stopping once they land. When an airplane backs out of a gate at an airport, it relies on the use of tow cars to push it onto the runway. If the pilot were to engage the thrust reverser while parked in the gate, the amount of force coming from the thrusters would damage the airport as well as the people and vehicles on the ground.

Water is not wet. "Wet" is just a term people use to describe the feeling of water. | Source

6. Why Is Water Wet?

"Wet" is ultimately just a word that applies to water. What we feel as wetness is actually coldness as the water evaporates. Below is an experiment from the Institute of Physics to test the feeling of "wetness" between two different liquids:

"The feeling of wetness is actually coldness. You can test this by comparing water with another liquid such as cooking oil, which doesn't evaporate so freely. Fill two small cups: one with water, and the other with cooking oil. (Young children should ask an adult to help.) Let both liquids come to room temperature for a day, or overnight. Dip one index finger in each liquid, lift them out, and then observe for a few minutes."

Liquids make surfaces wet (i.e. they stick to many solid surfaces) due to the electrostatic (opposite charges) forces between molecules. Water is polar—it has an uneven spread of electrical charge—which makes one end of the molecule positive and the other end negative. This causes water to be attracted to many surfaces and also explains many other properties of water.

Is There Dry Water?

Yes. Dry water is an unusual form of powdered liquid. It is a water-air emulsion in which liquid droplets the size of a grain of sand are surrounded by a silica coating. Dry water consists of 95 percent liquid, but the silica coating prevents the droplets from combining and becoming a bulk liquid. The result is a white powder that looks similar to table salt. It is also sometimes called "empty water."

Rainbows consist of the seven colours of the visible spectrum. | Source

7. What Makes a Rainbow?

White colour is actually a mix of several different colours. Each constituent colour of a rainbow is caused by a specific wavelength of light. When light hits a medium that forces it to slow down, the light ray bends, but not equally. Each wavelength bends by a certain amount, which causes the different coloured rays of light to exit the raindrop in slightly different directions. This results in the colours fanning out. When sunlight goes through droplets of water, the beam of light is split into the different colours that make up light. The same effect can be seen if you shine a light through a glass prism.

What Makes a Rainbow Curved?

A rainbow is curved because it reflects the round shape of the sun. Because you are on Earth, part of the sun is blocked, which why rainbows appear as a half or a quarter circle. If you were in an airplane and saw a rainbow below you, it would appear as a full circle.

Why Are There Only Seven Colours in a Rainbow?

There are only seven colours in a rainbow because only seven colours are included on the visible spectrum. While there are many more colours that are refracted when sunlight passes through a raindrop or glass prism, only seven can by seen by the human eye. These are:

The Colours of a Rainbow

Red (outermost)

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Indigo

Violet (innermost)

Can You See a Rainbow at Night?

Although rare, it is possible to see a rainbow at night. For this to happen, there must be rain, mist, or moisture in the air, and the moon must be reflecting the sun's light very brightly. When a rainbow occurs at night it is called a lunar rainbow or a "moonbow."

8. Why Don't Birds Get Electrocuted When They Land on Electric Wires?

To be electrocuted you must be part of a complete circuit. This means you must touch both a positive wire, and a negative or neutral wire (or "ground"). If a bird was touching the ground while touching the wire, the ground would act as a neutral wire and the current would flow through the bird, electrocuting it. If the bird sat on a wire and touched the metal of the pylon or another wire, it would also complete a circuit and get electrocuted. Because the bird's only sits on one wire, it is safe.

The same would be true if a person were to jump onto and hang on a wire without touching anything else. As long as the current of electricity does not have a means of escape, you become incorporated into the wire and the electricity runs through you without causing any damage.

So far, we have not been able to prove or disprove the existence of extraterrestrial life. | Source

9. Do Aliens Exist?

The short answer is we don't know. We don't have any proof to state that aliens do exist, but we also don't have any proof to state that they do not. While we know there are planets orbiting stars at the right distance for liquid water to exist, we have no idea if there is any form of life beyond our planet.

The only bird's that fly south for the winter are those whose food supply disappears in the winter months. | Source

10. Where Do Birds Go in Winter?

In areas with colder climates, some common bird foods (such as insects, nectar, small animals, small reptiles) disappear for the season. The birds that rely on these foods fly south for the winter months, where they are more likely to find their favorite foods. Other birds, such as those that feed on subterranean insects or bugs that burrow within the bark of trees, stick around for the winter months, as their supply of food is constant.

How Do Birds Stay Alive in the Winter?

The birds that do not migrate in the winter utilize certain survival techniques to make it through the cold months. First, they grow extra feathers in the months leading up to winter so they can keep warm. Birds can also fluff up their feathers to make air pockets that keep them even warmer.

In the months before a spell of cold weather, birds also increase their fat intake. With more fat, they are able to generate more heat when they need it. Some birds even feather flock together, which is when they pack together in a tight huddle and share body heat.

And, of course, when the sun is out, birds sunbathe to keep warm. Even the coldest winters have a few sunny days.

The ocean is blue for the same reason the sky is blue: the shortness of blue light waves. | Source

11. Why Is the Ocean Blue?

The ocean is not blue because the sky is blue, but it is blue for the same reason the sky is blue: The ocean is blue because the wavelength of blue light is easily captured, whereas the wavelengths of colours like red and orange are absorbed by the water and allowed to pass through it. In the words of the science magazine Scientific American:

"The ocean looks blue because red, orange and yellow (long wavelength light) are absorbed more strongly by water than is blue (short wavelength light). So when white light from the sun enters the ocean, it is mostly the blue that gets returned. Same reason the sky is blue."

The sun is brighter, and closer, than any start within our view. | Source

12. Why Is the Sun the Only Star That Can Be Seen During the Day?

Stars glow during the day, but they are impossible to see because of the brightness and closeness of the sun. Also, the light coming from the sun is scattered into the bright blue colour that we are familiar with as being the colour of the sky. This blue-tinted atmosphere plays a part in blocking out the stars, which in fact shine very faintly.

On the other hand, if you lived on the moon, its lack of atmosphere would allow you to see the stars both day and night.

Sources for Finding Answers

The Big QuestionA Blog set up after the 2008 UK National Science and Engineering Week. Some great headscratchers answered here, including the all-time favourite: Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg

Comments

No HTML is allowed in comments, but URLs will be hyperlinked. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites.

sending

fan tyagi tyagi

7 days ago

Thanks

Scarlett

10 days ago

It was a good impression ,in fact I love these answers that help me in the future

pankaj

6 weeks ago

why wont water in ocean increase? same explanation as of potential ... Theoritically earth has a potential of 711uF but practically it can have infinite amt. of charge likewise sea can have infinite amt. of water

Issak Abraham

3 months ago

The most questions are simple. Some are unanswerable..

stupid man

4 months ago

answer my question where do babies come from

Covley

4 months ago

nice

dikshant chandra sharma

5 months ago

Why won't the water of ocean increase?

Don't say due to evaporation the cycle goes on and there water don't rise.If it is due to evaporation give with full proof and with the facts that should be clear to all of us. I have been searching answer from long time but no one was able to answer about this. Hope you will help to find the answer...

waiting for your answer

alamin

6 months ago

A very tricky and nice question

why is the space dark in colour

why is the space called space

Partha

6 months ago

Too intersting...

XYZ

6 months ago

Nice and Amazing

khushi

6 months ago

Amazing.

zara qureshi

7 months ago

The most beneficial question for me is that as to 'why water is

wet'?

Bhumi

8 months ago

Niceeee! Very tricky n interesting

Paras

8 months ago

So easy and intresting question please upload and send more question

Tejasvini Wagh

8 months ago

Nice I love science therefore ...i love all this questions

Vishal prabhakar

8 months ago

I like you hard question.

ayushi

8 months ago

I like to solve hard question

Khushi

8 months ago

This quiz is nice

Lucky

9 months ago

Quiz is broken

anonymous

9 months ago

um hi

bob the builder

10 months ago

the are you a master test does not work i tried different answers each time and it gave me the same results

ayisha

10 months ago

your answer for why is the water wet was very helpful to me

thankyou

Jhon

10 months ago

I love how you explained about the moon during the day. VERY helpful

Rohit

10 months ago

Excellent

&&&

10 months ago

the are you a master test does not work i tried different answers each time and it gave me the same results

Sunil

11 months ago

Which thing is called “environmental detergent”?

Gargi

11 months ago

Great questions & interesting

….….….…

11 months ago

Not tricky at all these are amateur questions. I knew every answer immediately. They need to up their game.

Amesha

11 months ago

Interesting

Aastha Acharya

11 months ago

they were tricky and interesting....

Sneh Barvadia

13 months ago

very nice question.....

Qin Fu

14 months ago

yes very nice

parina

14 months ago

very nice

mind blowing

Firdous Ali

14 months ago

Thanks for giving this information

Fhcfc

14 months ago

Thanks for the information

really

14 months ago

The question test gives the same answer no matter what :/

GUEST

15 months ago

cool answers

Lynsey

15 months ago

I know most of the answers to these questions

Dbone

15 months ago

Nice questions

abi

16 months ago

interesting

Abhay

17 months ago

Nice

Angela

17 months ago

I really hope that questions I picked out can stump Mr. Science 1 and Mr. Science 2. Thanks for your help

Prajwal

17 months ago

I will absolutly ask this questions to my science teacher

Ayush Kumar

18 months ago

Salute the person who make these questions

beulah

20 months ago

interesting but boring

and why isn't my comment coming up

beulah

20 months ago

not good or funny

tiger brown

21 months ago

i love this owlcation

Arsema Ayana

23 months ago

This is an incredible page in order to test our knowledge. I got answers for all my questions that come to my mind. Thank you! what I suggest you is to add more scientific questions with their answers and also to dig out about unanswered natural events. That's what I am curious about! keep up the good work!

samuel bailey

23 months ago

thank you so much.That means that i can ask my science teacher these hard questions.

Krish Gupta

2 years ago

Well exoplanets (planets outside solar system) are more likely to have life as many of them are habitable zone & many has water on its surface. Thanks for such questions.

kushagra singh

2 years ago

Which came first ?

1. Space

2. Time

abdulla

3 years ago

ha giid

Haybae

3 years ago

I know the answer to where do babies come from but it is hard to explain it to a five year old. So I tell them they are tadpoles who swim into mama's tummy through a river. It keeps them quiet until they figure it out on there own. :)

raymans

4 years ago

Hi, This is great hub and I came across it while looking for answers to my kid's questions.

About the blue sky, Nitrogen refelcts blue so we see blue sky. What color does oxygen reflect? that's what my son asked me and I couldn't find the answer elsewhere too so came back here.

I understand nitrogen makes up most of the atmosphere so we will only see blue but just to answer my kid I would like to know what color/s other gases in atmosphere reflect...If you have the time.

Thanks

jimmy

Carrie Lee Night

5 years agofrom Northeast United States

Fun and interesting hub ! :) Thank you for the explanation of science that we don't think about every day. Have a great week.

Jaffer

6 years ago

Nice hubs ANd Thnx

Ankita

6 years ago

Great job :) :)..........

Pablo 245

6 years ago

I asked my mother were do babies come from once....(Ps I knew)

She told me they come from God.

cheetah786

6 years ago

great explantions, the wet water questions is answered greatly..

alexandria shinn

6 years ago

What is a kind of digestion where food is broken down by chemicals produced by the body.

Rachel Koski

6 years agofrom Pennsylvania, now farming in Minnesota

Great hub! I love the parts about the sky and the weight of the earth, especially. Congrats on Hub of the Day!!!

Hui (蕙)

6 years ago

Children are much smarter than adults. They always have pure, simple but meaningful, and adults may feel ridiculous, questions out of imagination about nature and humans. They ask in an absorbing voice and a unique, while adults may feel bizarre, way of thinking, which is actually where the science begins.

This is a great hub, meaningful and educational.

Liz Elias

6 years agofrom Oakley, CA

Stopping back to say congrats on HOTD!! ;-)

jessefutch

6 years agofrom North Carolina

Incredible hub. My oldest son is only 7 and he is asking questions like "What would happen if we find dinosaur DNA and splice it with a lizard's DNA then create a clone with it?" and "What would happen if the Sun suddenly started to rotate the other way?" Maybe a future hub "Questions ahead-of-their-class kids ask and how to answer them" is in order? I really need help with these! Keep up the good work!

Renz Kristofer Cheng

6 years agofrom Manila

This is a wonderful hub that is so much informative. I enjoyed reading this because it somehow refreshed some memories. Great job!

Rebecca Mealey

6 years agofrom Northeastern Georgia, USA

Nice Hub. I enjoyed reading it. I use to drive my grandmother crazy asking where babies came from.....all she would tell me is from the cabbage patch!

Jenn

6 years agofrom Pennsylvania

This is a great hub! I've wondered myself why birds don't get electrocuted on wires, and now I finally have the answer. :-)

JP Carlos

6 years agofrom Quezon CIty, Phlippines

Well done on the HOTD. Just try talking to kids and you'll never run out of difficult questions to answer. :)

KDuBarry03

6 years ago

Congrats on the HOTD! Well deserved and straight to the point :) Consider being a science teacher?

wayseeker

6 years agofrom Colorado

Congrats, TFT! Couldn't have happened to a better scientist! Now there's more for my kids to read, though I might wait a bit on that last question.

Great work,

Bert

Marcy Goodfleisch

6 years agofrom Planet Earth

I'm so glad to see this as a Hub of the Day - it is so full of interesting Information, and it answers all those questions our kids ask in the car, or when they're eating dinner, etc. Congrats on the HOTD - so deserved!

Oilersmyth

6 years agofrom Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Amazing hub! I'm following you right now!

v1p3r

6 years ago

Excellent hub

An AYM

6 years ago

Thumb up, for I adore science.

AUTHOR

Rhys Baker

6 years agofrom Peterborough, UK

These are questions asked by 10 year olds. I am equating the sky to the atmosphere...I thought that was obvious.

I didn't say water was wet - I said there was no such thing as wetness. You didn't read that very well now did you?

Thanks for the patronising 8/10. I give your comment 6/10 as there were many irrelevent points and you did not read the hub thoroughly before commenting.

coelocanth

6 years ago

I'm sorry but water is not wet. Water makes things wet but it is not wet in and of itself. Saying that water is wet is like saying that the film Love Story was sad. It wasn't; it made it's audiences sad, but the film itself was merely the projection of shades of colours designed to form images themselves designed to produce feelings of sadness in those viewing.

Also, the sky does not weigh anything because it has no physical entity. The answer you have given, imaginatively, in terms of Indian elephants, is, in fact, the weight of the atmosphere, which is an answer to a completely different question.

As for the rest of your hub, well done, 8 out of 10.

Dan Robbins

6 years ago

What a great hub. Every one of these questions are ones that children ask and many don't have the answer to. Ups and bonuses!

janmejay

6 years ago

its good

AUTHOR

Rhys Baker

7 years agofrom Peterborough, UK

Thanks to all! I am blown away by the positivity shown to this hub. I am trying to collate questions for a follow up hub - so if there are science questions that are bugging you, let me know!

anuramkumar

7 years agofrom Chennai, India

Great hub. Will use this hub to teach my kid science.

Moira Durano-Abesmo

7 years agofrom Sagay, Camiguin, Philippines

If I were still a science teacher I'd surely make this an assignment for my students.

BlissfulWriter

7 years ago

I always liked reading about science. This is good.

Jennifer Essary

7 years agofrom Idaho

Great Hub with excellent explanations! Voted up, useful, and sharing.

Liz Elias

7 years agofrom Oakley, CA

Ah, yes--very well written! My own kids are now adults, but I did strive not to dodge any questions, and help find the answers if I did not know.

On the baby question--the answer must fit the age of the child.

Airplanes--ah, yes--because my father worked in the aviation industry, and my ex-husband was into R/C planes, I've known that answer for a long time. But how much does the sky weigh? WOW! I'm glad I never had to field that one! "The sky," can be anything--our own atmosphere--but up to what altitude? Or it can be the entire vastness of space, which ends...who knows where?

And rainbows. They usually only happen when it is still raining...and are always opposite the direction of the sun. The common wisecrack in our (New England) family upon seeing a rainbow was, "Ah--the devil is fighting with his wife."

Voted up, interesting, useful, awesome and shared.

(P.S.--love your profile picture!)

Robin Edmondson

7 years agofrom San Francisco

You have made the explanations so clear! I'm going to read this Hub to our 9 year old. She just asked us this morning, "Why if Mercury is closer to the sun is Venus hotter?" We had a great discussion about the sizes of the two planets and their atmospheres. She's only in 3rd grade, I know there will be a lot of questions that I can't answer and we'll have to look up very soon! I really appreciate this Hub!

AUTHOR

Rhys Baker

7 years agofrom Peterborough, UK

@Sun Pen: I'm sure you will still find some use for a couple of these facts - grandchildren tend to ask grandparents the tricky questions too!

@chrisand: Maybe you can settle your nerves now you know that planes get both a lift and a pull up :)

@Simone: I'm glad you enjoyed it

Thank you all for the positive comments!

chrisand

7 years ago

Wow, I really enjoyed these science facts. It was interesting to find out exactly what makes a plane stay up in the air, especially for someone like me who gets a little nervous when a plane I'm in is taking off :)

Sun Pen 50

7 years agofrom Srilanka

"Each question has a simple answer, followed by a slightly fuller explanation and, where necessary, a link for more information. Enjoy" Yes,dear Scientist, I enjoyed the hub a lot. Pity that i do not have children of that age and grandsons are just passing that inquisitive stage. The granddaughter living faraway. Wish I had this info three four decades back. Thanks for a nicely designed and well explained hub up/awesome

Simone Haruko Smith

7 years agofrom San Francisco

What an enjoyable read this was! I had been told many of these explanations but enjoyed reading them again. Fabulous Hub!

AUTHOR

Rhys Baker

7 years agofrom Peterborough, UK

Thank you to all the commenters - I am so pleased that people are finding this hub interesting. I think it is my favourite so far! I hope this demonstrates that science doesn't need to be lofty and difficult to understand.

Silwen

7 years agofrom Europe

Great hub. It seems that I know physics, but sometimes it is very hard to answer such tricky questions. Your answers are clear and easy understandable. Thank you.

SolveMyMaze

7 years ago

Excellent hub, especially question ten!

Brandon Lobo

7 years ago

Great hub ;) I liked the one of water being wet. The term came after water and not water after the term. So, water has to be wet otherwise wet wouldn't be wet :D

AUTHOR

Rhys Baker

7 years agofrom Peterborough, UK

Thank you all for your kind words. Glad to know that the hub is useful to others. I am planning a follow up to this hub with hubbers questions - take a look at the question I have posted if you have a science question that has always puzzled you

Don Crowson

7 years ago

Excellent hub. Answers questions for older perople as well as the children. Thanks

Aurelio Locsin

7 years agofrom Orange County, CA

Excellent hub for parents of 4-year-olds who are always asking these questions. Voting this Up and Useful.

scottcgruber

7 years agofrom USA

I have a one year old and can't wait till he starts asking these questions. I've been studying up on Rayleigh scattering so I'll be prepared.

Marcy Goodfleisch

7 years agofrom Planet Earth

What a neat hub! This would be great for kids as a learning tool. Fun stuff, and informative! Voted up and interesting.

AUTHOR

Rhys Baker

7 years agofrom Peterborough, UK

Thanks Kris and cclitgirl! I learnt a few new things researching this hub, and its great to know it has hit the mark! :)

Cynthia Calhoun

7 years agofrom Western NC

This is a great hub for parents to explore with their children. Voted up and awesome. :)

Connect with us

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, owlcation.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)

Google AdSense Host API

This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Facebook Login

You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Maven

This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)

We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.

Conversion Tracking Pixels

We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.

Statistics

Author Google Analytics

This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)

Comscore

ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)

Amazon Tracking Pixel

Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)